And now, the Sarajevo story continues...
Everywhere I go, I HAVE to check out a grocery store. I AM a kitchen hoor ya know, so it's almost a requirement! It was the ONE thing I asked specifically to do while we were there. H offered to take me Sunday morning. She had to do some shopping, anyway, so it wouldn't be much for me to tag along.
I think we went to AK market? I'm not sure and don't quote me. It was big, but there was a large section of kitchen gadgets, glassware, and dinner ware in the center. The grocery part was about the size of a regular Trader Joe's. I bought some golden delicious apples. I was missing fresh fruit and the UBER sour grapefruit and oranges on the breakfast buffet in the morning just wasn't good enough. They had apples ONCE and I think I ate 2 apples or almost 2 apples that morning. So, I bought enough apples for the rest of my stay there. Or so I thought...
The produce was pretty much the same. There was a really interesting squash of some description that I still can't recognize. I've Googled and am not successful at finding out what type of gourd it is. But it was HUGE!!
And this cauliflower was almost the size of a small watermelon. GYNORMOUS! I've never seen cauliflower so big!! Everything else was smaller in comparison to the produce in the States. Locally grown, I'm sure, so there's no genetic engineering to beef the size up. Are you starting to understand how we have such an obesity epidemic here? Myself included? Everything is blown WAY out of proportion including the food size. What I purchased as a regular portion of an apple would be considered small here. The apples we have here are almost 2 portions, yet we'll eat one and say it's one.
Anyway.
They have a small cart of "organic" items. Mostly nuts and what not. Some pastas maybe? Couscous? It was different. Then, we were out of the produce and into the deli section. WOW. Where we would have a whole case of cheese they have a whole case of salamis and cured meats. WOW! It took all my will power to not purchase several packages just to see what they all tasted like! There were so many selections! I almost thought I was in an Italian market. It was different and completely unexpected.
I don't remember seeing cereal. There were some canned goods, but nothing like what we have. Some more of that chicken pate stuff that I talked about here. Except now there's a LARGER selection with other types of meat like tuna, turkey, salmon, I think? There was a whole end cap and then again in the next aisle. It was interesting.
There are no convenience products. No Hamburger Helper, no Ragu, very little canned soup, and very little canned goods at all. I'm not sure if this was a typical grocery store. But from the conversations I've had, if you don't make it from scratch you don't eat it. You are shunned if you use any convenience products at all. It's healthier that way! I bought some citron in the baking section. It just looked mu prettier than the containers you get here. I can't wait to make my steamed pudding with them! Yay for holiday baking!
There's a CRAPTON of dairy products. Several types of sour cream and yogurt. They're mayonnaise and tartar sauce were in there...in tubes. Along with horseradish sauce.
Clockwise is the horseradish sauce, mayonnaise and tartar sauce. How interested that 1 - it's in the dairy aisle and 2 - that it's in a tube in the dairy aisle.
Something else I found interesting. There were quail eggs in the dairy section.
Yes, I did open them to verify that they were actually quail eggs in the package. It was a small-ish box with two levels of eggs. They were tiny and white with brown spots. I'm not so sure I can eat those. I mean, I have issues with regular eggs sometimes. There is NO WAY a runny yolk will be on my plate ever again. But to crack open or boil one of these tiny things and then eat it? Not gonna happen. For me at least. They could taste absolutely amazing, but I can't get past the wrapper and the size.
They sell liquor in the grocery. This is a foreign concept to me. We have ABC stores here. Mom had to shell out a small fortune in her area for liquor. I've never been anywhere that you can buy vodka next to dog food. Well, not literally, but ya get my point. I just couldn't resist this bottle...
We get in line and H says, "Shoot. I forgot to weigh my grapes." Um...apparently, when you purchase produce, you have to have it weighed and bar coded for check out. So, she took my apples and have them weighed for me. It's like at Wegmans or Giant where you can weigh and print a bar code for it, but apparently, they can't ring produce up without it. *shrugs*
We head to her apartment. The view is spectacular! See?
We dropped off the groceries, put away the refrigerated items, and then walked to have lunch at a local cafe. Heh. Dropped off the groceries. H is on the 5th floor of a walk up. Yup. A walk up. No elevator. It was good to get out and stretch my legs a bit. I had been cooped up in the room most of Saturday and Sunday. I'm not a hugs fan of wandering aimlessly in a strange city, especially a foreign one. Go figure! Needless to say, I was quite stretched enough after this little exercise.
She ordered pizza and I had a sammy. I was dying for a sammy for some reason. The bread is fabulous here! It was a perfect ciabatta style bread for my turkey ham sandwich. Yes, that's tomato, cucumber, and lettuce on the sandwich. It was excellent!
H forgot some some cream cheese for her pumpkin cake she was going to bake. So, twist my arm, we had to stop into another grocery type store. I found a delicious looking flat bread and some salami which would make a perfect nibble for dinner that night. Especially since I snagged a few wedges of that spreadable cheese. NOM! We get back to her apartment (yes walking up all 5 flights) and she calls me a cab to head back to the hotel. We scheduled lunch at Noovi tomorrow. That place has awesome food! Just sayin...
It started raining and rained almost every day until we left. The view out of my hotel window was interesting. I could see the river rising as it continued to rain.
Apparently, I didn't take a picture of my nibbles for dinner. I had some of the flat bread with some salami, cheese, an apple, and a roll from breakfast. Hi. My name is Chris and I'm bread addict. Really I'm a carb addict; bread, pasta, potatoes, rice. LOVE 'EM! In large quantities, please. Later on that night, I needed water and figured I'd bust open the bag of chips I purchased to sample because it just looked too interesting to NOT try.
Um. Yeah. Spicy chicken flavored drum chips. Different. Good different, but still really different. I don't think we have any chicken leg flavored chips here in the States. Chicken biscuit crackers, I think they still make those, but no chips. I was quite surprised with how tasty they were and how spicy they were! Considering this country doesn't do the spicy thing, I was surprised. The rest of the night, I watched Disney movies on the iPad. Then went to the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movies. At least I had Noovi to look forward to tomorrow...and a MASSAGE! YES!
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